Remember those magazine ads for Time-Life books, the ones showing “The Ascent of Man,” a conga line of ape-like creatures, knuckles scraping the ground, ascending to more upright spear carriers until finally reaching Homo sapiens status?

TV reverses that process. TV keeps taking us in the opposite direction, leaving each generation a little lower. If there was ever any doubt, a recent “Rachael Ray Show,” seen here weekdays on Ch. 7 at 10 a.m., removed it. Ray’s guest was actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, best known for his role as Denny on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.”

Twice, within a few minutes, he described something as “crap” or “crappy.” He could have used “junk” or “cheap” or “cheesy” or a dozen other words. Instead, he sat on the set of a national TV show and easily and breezily went with “crap.”

And it was no big deal.

And that’s the troubling part. It was okay. Okay? Hey, it’s preferred. Always reach down for the most vulgar or crude words that can be spoken. TV wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m not eager to write some of the words I’m about to write, but what better way to make the point? Besides, TV has helped mainstream all of them, and it can only get worse. There’s no reason to think that TV’s “Reverse Ascent of Man” process will soon be reversed.

We’ve already noted “crap.” Why use junk when you can go with something crude, something scatological?

For years, on TV, a “that stinks” lament was heard and understood. But “stinks” was eventually replaced in scripts and even free-form dialogue to become “that sucks,” something more sexual, vulgar and lower. And even sucks now isn’t low enough; it has been replaced with “that blows” – just to remove any doubt where sucks came from, where TV is headed and where it leads us.

CBS, a few years ago, aired a promo for the sitcom “Two And A Half Men” during which the show’s child actor, Angus T. Jones, then roughly 10 years old, declared, “that blows!” The promo appeared during CBS’s traditional Thanksgiving Day football telecast.

From “stinks” to “sucks” to “blows.” We’re doing great, huh?

Used to be that someone with courage or nerve was called, “gutsy” or had “guts.” The point was made. Now? Aim lower; go for the crotch. Call the person, male or female, “ballsy,” tell us that he or she “has balls.” And the MTVs of our world no longer serve as TV’s anticipatory desensitization stops.

Morley Safer, interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” four years ago, told the Governor of California, “It took a lot of balls to go cold-turkey into politics.” “60 Minutes” proudly re-aired the unedited interview last year and still proudly provides the clip on its Website.

Again, any coarse expression that relates to the crotch region has become adopted by and mainstreamed by TV. Low, lower, lowest.

Once, when someone declared that he or she is angry or “ticked off” no one needed any further explanation.

“Ticked off” was used as a clean, TV substitute for “pissed off.”

Now? Feel free to come right out with it: “That pisses me off!” or “I’m pissed!” Piss and crap are now accepted and expected. How nice.

One wonders how the great sitcoms of long ago would air after undergoing modern applications. Would Beaver tell Wally, “That blows”? Would Wally tell Eddie Haskell, “I’m tired of your crap; you really piss me off!” And to think what TV today would do with a nickname such as Beaver!

Would today’s network executives allow the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” to air without loading it with sexual innuendo, crude language and Mary Richards’ one-night-stand scenes, even if some of the brilliant comedy had to be eliminated to make room?

Rhetorical questions. Mary would spend more time in the bedroom than the WJM newsroom.

And while it’s impossible to imagine TV execs encouraging the young people in their lives to choose crude expressions when conversing, that’s what they’re doing to our kids.